Page 50 of Ruin

All I know is what I want: Giovanna. As if she can hear my thoughts, my phone buzzes again, likely another text from her. Not being able to answer her feels like something sharp is lodged between my ribs.

“Whatever the two of you decide, I’ll support.”

Lorenzo clears his throat. “Gentlemen, I explained to you previously that I am already very busy with my own businesses, and my schedule really won’t allow me to take on any new commitments at the moment. Perhaps there is someone else suited to the job.”

“Nonsense. You will start immediately. We have to makesure our girl is taken care of, do we not?”

Aurelio chuckles and stares down Lorenzo whose face flushes with rage as he grips the chair arms so tight that his knuckles turn white.

I look between the two of them surreptitiously, trying to figure out what is going on. Is Giovanna “our girl”? It doesn’t feel appropriate to ask, so I say nothing, hoping that one of them will enlighten me. But neither does.

When Lorenzo doesn’t respond, Aurelio flicks his fingers in the direction of the door, dismissing us both. “Lorenzo, you will begin now. Tommaso, escort him to the chopper.”

Lorenzo stands and buttons his suit jacket, swinging his overcoat over his arm. He has no interest in staying any longer than he has to, and I have to lengthen my stride to catch up with him.

Outside, the wind has picked up, the temperatures icy. It’s not really an issue for me, but I pull my hood up over my head to keep the wind out of my ears. Extreme temperatures, like pain, have minimal effect unless extreme, and even then, I don’t hate it.

Lorenzo, on the other hand, pulls up his collar against the wind and blows into his hands uncomfortably as we get into the golf cart driven by one of my father’s guards.

The olive trees line the gravel drive, the estate stretching wide like a fortress around us.

“I heard about the party,” Lorenzo says. “Your little disagreement with Antonio Abbiati.”

I keep my eyes trained forward. “He was inappropriate with Giovanna, sir.”

“And do you make a habit of following your attempts to defend every woman’s honor by flinging her over yourshoulder and spanking her? Or is my daughter special?”

Interesting. I didn’t realize anyone saw that. Not that I care. I’d fuck her in front of a stadium full of people that included her father and everyone we know. When I’m with her, all I see is her. It’s when she’s with anyone else that I want to set any man who looks at her on fire.

“She is special, sir. And he put his hands on her. That won’t be tolerated.”

We pull up to the end of the path leading to the chopper, and he pauses before getting out of the golf cart.

“You don’t think it’s appropriate for a young man to respond with anger when his date is molested in a bathroom by a thug?”

I level him with a hard stare. “If you’re referring to what I think you are, your characterization of events isn’t accurate.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. What I’m telling you,” Lorenzo says, his voice unmistakably final. “Is that Giovanna is young. She’s passionate. She doesn’t always know what’s best for her. And it’s my job to protect her from men who may hurt her. And from herself.”

I ball my fists and work hard to turn on the ‘pleasant smile’ Gi recommended. It doesn’t work. As long as I’ve known Giovanna, her father has taken very little interest in her life, but for some reason, he’s been increasingly invested in who she spreads her legs for. And that is my business, and my business alone.

“If you’re implying that I’d harm her—”

“I’m saying you already have,” Lorenzo snaps, cutting me off. “Even if you don’t see it yet. She was meant for more than this,” he gestures to the sprawling estate behind us, “more than this world. More than you. But you already know that,don’t you?”

I do know that. I’ve always seen it. The way she walks into a room and changes the air. The light in her when she talks about things that don’t belong to this world of blood and corruption.

She has started to teach me how to show up in a world that isn’t defined by its shadows, but what have I given her in return? Embarrassment in front of her friends and family? The promise of a life in the gutter, no matter how much money I make to provide for her?

My phone buzzes again, and I pull it out of my pocket. Giovanna. I tap the text thread to open it and scan a string of flirty, sexually graphic texts ending with “Where are you?”

I don’t answer, and slide the phone back in my pocket, my chest hollow.

Lorenzo continues. “I know you see the potential in her, the great things she can do in the world if she isn’t weighed down by… well, to be blunt, you. Give her the chance to do those things. If you care about her at all, Tommy, you’ll let her go.”

My vision blurs as I watch him turn and walk toward the chopper, the pilot turning on the engine, the rotor and blades roaring to life. All the ways I could dismantle him flip through my head like pages of a book: throw him into the helicopter rotor blades, knock him out and drown him, carve him up and let him bleed out slowly.

But it wouldn’t change the fact that he’s right.